


the bread tastes better in europe

by magisterequitum



Category: Vampire Diaries (TV)
Genre: F/M, Future Fic
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-01-05
Updated: 2013-01-05
Packaged: 2017-11-23 16:56:42
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,086
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/624454
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/magisterequitum/pseuds/magisterequitum
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>she's forty-two when she finds the best tour guide one could ask for.</p>
            </blockquote>





	the bread tastes better in europe

Elena learns that there's no one better to have as a tour guide than someone who's actually seen these places being built, who's touched the worn marble and sand and concrete time and time again.

She actually finds him outside of the Vatican one day late in summer. She's traveling alone, neither by choice or by abandonment, just because. She'd taken a train here for the day because it was a place her mother always had wanted to visit.

Her face breaks out in a smile, unbidden, at the sight of him in his dark suit, a black figure in the sunlight and white everywhere else around them. She tucks a piece of hair behind her ear and says, "Hi."

Elijah doesn't look all that different from the last time she'd seen him, still in Virginia then, but he's covered in way less blood and ash; killing a god like being was messy business. He tilts his head up towards the balcony and quirks an eyebrow in that inscrutable way of his. Slightly arrogant and as if he's laughing at his own private joke. "The last time I was here this place was much more fun."

She's standing in front of him now, having closed the distance between them. There's something in what he says that makes her want to know the full story. But then she's always hungered in a way for all that he's seen and known. "And when was that?"

He tips his head at her. "At the turn of the sixteenth century." He stares down at her, half of his face in shadow from the buildings around them. "Tell me, have you been to the countryside yet?"

"No," she answers.

In the warm air, he stretches his arm out to her, an offering. She thinks about how he'd thrown her away from the sacrifice at the hands of Shane, about the letter that's worn ink now. She takes the proffered limb.

 

 

 

The Italian countryside is pretty.

Pretty is a horrible adjective for description, but it's all her mind comes up with when she takes in the multitude of colors. To a vampire's eye it's a kaleidoscope of greens and burnt red-oranges mixed with various pops of violet and pink and poppy red of flowers.

She touches her fingers to them and listens as Elijah names them. The words fall into her ears. She tastes them on her tongue and catalogs them, lets him tell her also of the places that no longer exist here, the people that once stood where her sneakers now rest.

He follows her with a patient and amused ticking of his lips. When she's imprinted all of everything that she can take in, he suggests another destination.

 

 

 

In Milan, he makes her try every olive they can find.

Olives and the coffees don't go together, but the wine in the warmed jugs tastes better.

She learns that it's a horrible idea to ask to go to the museums. They go and while there, he comments on everything, a snob in the worst way, endlessly annoyed at the tourists. It reminds her of the one time Jeremy had stepped foot inside a museum.

Elena lets him have his disdain.

 

 

 

They take a train out of Italy.

She'd crossed Amsterdam off of the departure list when Elijah had remarked on all of the times Kol had indulged in the city's famous pastime. The last time she'd been high had been once with Bonnie when she was human, and she wasn't keen to learn how much weed it took to get a vampire high, especially one as ancient as an Original.

When she tells him she's never been to France, because Caroline had raved about her trip there for an entire year after coming back, he suggests they go to Avignon first.

 

 

 

Standing on the banks of the Rhone, she feels incredibly small and young. She's watching as he manages to get a rock to skim out over the water, skipping quite far before dropping below the surface. He's old, far too old, and she's always known this but here where everything is old she feels it even more. When she'd turned forty-two with no gray around her temples, she'd felt old. Now she feels anything but.

"How are you?" Elena asks to change the subject.

He casts her a look from the side. "I am here with you."

Something twists inside her, and she's shocked to find it giddiness and pleasure; it's been a while since she'd felt that over another person being happy to be around her, other than someone like Caroline or Bonnie when she visited or her brother.

 

 

 

In Paris she asks about his siblings.

"Are they still mad?" She bites her lip as she voices her question. the dying screams of Klaus still echo in her head sometimes at night, how stupid they'd all been back then and thinking that a "cure" was what it said to be.

Elijah takes a while to answer. His face goes still and he seems to mull over his reply. Finally, he speaks. "They're fine. As am I."

They sneak into the forbidden parts of Versailles and she traces fingers over the walls of Marie Antoinette's bedroom.

 

 

 

It rains in Vienna.

They spend their days in the hotel. She eats food while he repeats phrases over and over again in German as she tries to absorb the guttural sounds.

 

 

 

On a train again he asks about her.

She's startled to realize that he hadn't before now. Incredibly patient and content to let her be, he's only now inquired about her.

She finds she doesn't mind telling him about how her skin had grown too itchy for Mystic Falls and those who wanted to still live there, and everything else.

 

 

 

In Barcelona, Elena dances while a dress of red silk curls around her legs.

She kisses him too in Barcelona. Leans forward during a spin and puts her lips on his as if she has every right to do so, takes the giddiness that's been sitting inside her stomach and pours it out with teeth and tongue. His arms are firm around her waist and the black of his eyes shine like the marble steps she'd climbed today.

Elena laughs and lets him spin her around.

 

 

 

Morning creeps over the white comforter of their room.

Elena traces her fingers over her map and lets Elijah tell her how tedious Portugal can be; his words, she doesn't understand.

They settle on Greece.


End file.
